In late afternoon trade, the Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC) share price is on course to end the week in the red.

At the time of writing, the banking giant’s shares are down 0.8% to $21.16.

This latest decline means the Westpac share price is now down over 6% since the start of the month.

Should you buy the Westpac share price dip?

If the broker community is to be believed, this recent pullback could be a great buying opportunity for investors.

For example, analysts at Citi currently have a buy rating and $30.00 price target on the bank’s shares. Based on the current Westpac share price, this implies potential upside of almost 42% for investors over the next 12 months.

In response to its first-quarter update, Citi said:

It is difficult to draw definitive conclusions from a Pillar 3 release, but we conclude that WBC is tracking broadly in-line with Citi’s and consensus expectations.

Elsewhere, Goldman Sachs currently has a conviction buy rating and $27.74 price target on its shares. This suggests potential upside of 31% for investors. Goldman believes Westpac is well-placed for growth thanks to rising interest rates and its cost cutting. It said:

WBC’s shorter-duration replicating portfolio, and current balance sheet performance, should see its NIM outperform peers, [and] despite WBC recently revising its FY24E cost target to A$8.6 bn (from A$8.0 bn), the bank’s performance on cost management remains strong in this inflationary environment with a 9% step down in underlying costs expected over the next two years.

Finally, Morgans is positive and has an add rating and $25.80 price target, implying potential upside of 22%. It commented:

We view WBC as having the greatest potential for return on equity improvement amongst the major banks if its business transformation initiatives prove successful.

The post The Westpac share price is down 6% this month, should you buy the dip? appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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Motley Fool contributor James Mickleboro has positions in Westpac Banking. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended Westpac Banking. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

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What a great week it’s been for the New Hope Corporation Limited (ASX: NHC) share price.

The ASX 200 coal share is up 9% after dropping a great set of results for 1H FY23 earlier in the week.

This compares to a 0.2% bump for the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) this week.

The miner doubled its profits and seriously upsized its dividend by 76% to a new record level.

As my colleague Bernd points out, New Hope is now paying a dividend yield of 17.6%.

That’s nuts.

The coal miner will pay an interim dividend of 30 cents per share fully franked. It will also pay a special dividend of 10 cents per share fully franked.

If you’re not currently an investor and you want a piece of those divvies, you’ll have to buy New Hope shares before the ex-dividend date.

But that’s not til 17 April.

So, if that’s your strategy, maybe it’s worth waiting to see if the New Hope share price drops back a bit following all this market exuberance this week.

By the way, that river of black gold dividends won’t be stopping there, if broker Morgans has it right.

The broker forecasts a fully franked annual dividend of $1 per share in FY23. That’s another massive 18% payout based on the current share price. It forecasts a 90-cent dividend in FY24, which is a 16% yield.

Case closed: New Hope ends the week on a high

The New Hope share price may be slightly in the red today, down 0.35%, but the company is ending the week on a positive note.

New Hope released an update today in relation to legal proceedings brought against it by the liquidators of its subsidiary companies Northern Energy Corporation (NEC) and Colton Coal.

The Supreme Court of NSW dismissed the case after the parties agreed to a settlement.

The deal will cost New Hope $38.5 million.

The company said:

Consistent with the provision raised by the Company and outlined in the Financial Statements for the half year ended 31 January 2023, the economic outflow from the Group arising from the settlement is A$38.5 million.

New Hope has denied any wrongdoing in previous statements on the matter.

What was that all about?

To recap, NEC and Colton Coal were subsidiaries of New Hope. They were placed into voluntary administration in October 2018. Creditors then appointed liquidators in July 2019.

The liquidators investigated whether there were any potential claims to be made against New Hope or the former directors and officers of the subsidiary businesses. They reportedly looked into alleged voidable transactions, insolvent trading, asset transfers, and breaches of directors’ duties.

In a statement back in March 2021, New Hope said that according to media reports that day, the liquidators had estimated the value of the claims at $174.1 million plus interest and costs.

The post Why is the New Hope share price up 9% this week? appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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Motley Fool contributor Bronwyn Allen has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

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Looking for a growth share or maybe two to buy? If you are, you may want to look at the two listed below.

Here’s why these ASX growth shares are rated highly right now:

Lovisa Holdings Limited (ASX: LOV)

This fast-fashion jewellery retailer could be a top option for growth investors right now.

Morgans is very positive on the company and believes it is well-placed for growth over the long term thanks to its global expansion. Its analysts commented:

LOV continues to impress us with the rate at which it opens new stores and expands into new markets. As we have said before, LOV may just prove to be one of the biggest success stories in Australian retail. LOV is showing every sign of becoming a global brand.

The broker currently has an add rating and $28.50 price target on its shares.

Webjet Limited (ASX: WEB)

Another ASX growth share that has been named as a buy is online travel booking company Webjet.

Goldman Sachs is positive on the company. It believes Webjet has come out of the pandemic as a significantly stronger company and expects this to lead to strong earnings growth over the coming years. It commented:

We have the stock on our Conviction List as we believe WEB’s Bedbanks business offers a structural growth opportunity which is expected to drive scale benefits and see an improved cost structure with system changes and ERP upgrades which will only be realized as WEB goes through the recovery cycles. […] We note that upside remains thin on this name vs. our Target Price, but consensus expectations for group margins continue to be well below GSe for FY24/25 implying potential consensus upgrades in our view.

Goldman has a conviction buy rating and price target of $7.20 on its shares.

The post Jewellery and travel: Analysts say these ASX growth shares are buys appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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Motley Fool contributor James Mickleboro has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended Lovisa. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended Lovisa. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

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Another week, another bank collapse?

Hopefully not this week… we’ve had enough of those, thank you very much.

The RBA’s next rates call gets tougher

And it seems the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England (among others) are suitably confident that there’s no looming crisis that they actually decided to raise rates over the last couple of days.

Either that… or they’re so worried about inflation, that they’re prepared to take the risk!

In all likelihood, it’s probably some combination of both.

And that means the RBA has a tough call to make.

They want to tamp down on inflation.

And they know that if the others go, and we don’t, it’ll push the dollar down and import more inflation.

So those are the cases for increasing rates.

On the other hand, they seem concerned about ‘mixed’ data, and the million-odd fixed rate loans that will convert to variable over the next 20 months will do a lot of the heavy lifting for them – long after they’ve stopped raising rates.

I haven’t seen the month-by-month fixed-to-variable rollovers, but if they’re going to happen soon enough – and keep happening – I’d reckon that’d be enough for me to sit pat if I was in Governor’s chair. If the bulk of those rollovers are too far away, I think I’d press the ‘up’ button.

Of course, you might be surprised that Phil Lowe doesn’t consult me on rates decisions. Who’d have thought, right?

So, like the rest of the country, I’ll just wait and see. And wish him luck.

Another day, another hack

Apparently Rio Tinto Limited‘s (ASX: RIO) employee details were accessed by a hacker this week.

That’s on the back of Latitude Group Holdings’s (ASX: LFS) customer data breach last week.

And Optus, Medibank Private Ltd (ASX: MPL) and plenty more over the past few months.

This is the new normal.

I still don’t reckon companies have come to grips with what customer data they should (and shouldn’t) retail.

I still don’t reckon they’ve come to grips with the challenges of effective cybersecurity.

And I still don’t reckon governments have a good framework for preventing, dealing with, and punishing these things.

Investors? I think we should expect that any/every company we own will be hacked at some point. It’ll hurt share prices, temporarily at least. But there’s no way to know who’ll be next, so it’s a case of being ready, then grinning and bearing it.

As Spock (didn’t really) tell Captain Kirk, ‘It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it’.

We’d better get used to it.

Buy Now Pretend Later?

Good news, Australia.

We – private and public alike – are now debt free.

No, seriously.

See, Afterpay has decided that what it offers isn’t really ‘credit’ but ‘working capital’, as reported in today’s AFR.

So, I’ve taken their very impressive lead and reclassified all Australian debt – government debt, mortgage loans, bank overdrafts, credit card debt… the lot! – as working capital.

And just like that, we no longer have any debt.

You’re welcome. Take the weekend off!

(Yes, apparently they seriously said that. And yes, of course that’s absolute tripe. Well, it would be tripe, but I’ve decided that tripe isn’t really an animal’s stomach lining. It’s caviar. You’re – again – welcome.)

Quick takes

Overblown: Predictions. Especially about interest rates. People can have a view on what the RBA should do. But trying to guess what it will do is a mug’s game. The board will make its own decision, based on its own collective judgement. Predictions are a parlour game – sometimes fun, but always useless.

Underappreciated: Quality. Yes, seriously. Now, I mean proper business quality, not just what everyone agrees are ‘blue chips’ (plenty of those have done very poorly). Great businesses tend to win. And their shareholders most often do, too.

Fascinating: It’s too complex to go deeply into for this little space, but Credit Suisse bondholders got wiped out, while shareholders got (some) value for their shares. That’s the opposite of how these things are supposed to go. Why did it happen? Because the people buying bonds couldn’t imagine a scenario in which it would happen, even though it was there in the contract. Buyer beware, indeed.

Where I’ve been looking: For quality (see above). If you have a long term perspective, I reckon you should be putting quality above (almost) everything. Price matters, of course, but what if you could identify quality companies with long term growth potential, available at a decent price. That search is what I’ve been focused on this week.

Quote: “Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken” – Warren Buffett

Fool on!

The post The RBA’s job just got harder appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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Motley Fool contributor Scott Phillips has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

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